Indecent images shame of ex-teaching assistant

Published 10 Dec 2009 10:09 0 Comments

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By Rosalyn Campbell

A TEACHING assistant who worked at a local school was caught with 300 indecent images of children.

James McWilliams, 54, once employed at Corseford Resident School in Johnstone, has now been banned from going there or from returning to his family home in Bridge of Weir as part of his bail conditions.

Paisley Sheriff Court heard this week how McWilliams distributed or accepted around 300 sick images via a laptop and desk top computer at his Renfrewshire home - and was caught in a sting mounted by America's FBI.

Depute fiscal Pat Callender said: "A law enforcement agent with the FBI logged on to the Yahoo messenger chat room with the user name Gingermom1970 and engaged McWilliams in conversation.

"He said his name was James and during the chat session sent indecent images of a teenage girl to Gingermom using a photo share facility.

"Investigations were subsequently carried out and it was discovered the accused's name was James McWilliams.

"Further checks revealed his address and Strathclyde police obtained a search warrant and went there after being informed."

Two computers were seized and taken to be forensically examined and 329 images were recovered in total. Some 28 in total had been distributed by the perverted McWilliams.

McWilliams will now have his name placed on the Sex Offenders' Register after admitting three charges on indictment.

He pleaded guilty to having the indecent images of children in his possession between January and April this year, making images by accepting them when downloading from other internet sources and distributing them by sending images to others from his computer.

Defence advocate Joe Barr said his client - a first offender - had held down a good job and had never before been in any kind of trouble.

At that particular time, his wife had worked late shifts and he would start drinking and end up browsing the internet.

He developed an interest in adult porn and that led him inevitably to chat room exchanges with others.

The advocate said that it was not always possible to determine from a name tag what the content might be and McWilliams would from time to time delete or even send back photos he had received.

But, the moment the document had been opened, it would be recorded on the computer hard drive, so could still be retrieved by experts carrying out a technical detailed search of recorded activity.

He said: "He accepts that by opening these images, he was in fact creating them on his computer and knowing that they were likely to be indecent, he is guilty.

"He accepts that these are serious offences but seeks his liberty to be in the community while background reports are prepared."

Sheriff Neil Douglas deferred sentence and called for a background report, community service order assessment and a profile from the Pathways Project for sex offenders.

He was ordered to return to court to learn his fate on January 5.

This article appeared in The Gazette 09 Dec 09

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